A 25-year old British woman was gang-raped by a group of men, who filmed the incident. When the woman reported the crime to authorities, she was arrested and her passport was confiscated. The men were allowed to go free.

The UK-based Detained in Dubai campaign group said she has been released on bail but had her passport confiscated, meaning she cannot leave the country, and could face trial for offences with punishments including jail, deportation, flogging and stoning to death.

The group is in contact with the woman’s family, who claim the two men took it in terms to rape her while filming the attack at a hotel.

The woman did what was logical. Something very bad happened to her and she reported it to the authorities. Unfortunately, the law in UAE is incredibly anti-woman. It doesn’t matter how you had sex outside of marriage. The moment you admit that the act occurred (consensual or not), you have admitted to a crime.

(There are ways around this involving male witnesses that are basically impossible standards to meet).

In the United States, I know that terrible things can happen to me. But I know that for whatever has or will happen to me, I am not actively punished by the government for it.

There are few things that scare me more than rape. And the #1 thing that frightens me the most is losing my liberty. Yes, even more than death.

I cannot imagine the fear and pain this woman is feeling. She had something terrible happen to her and is facing something awful because of it.

If I traveled to Dubai and something very bad happened to me, I would need to make absolutely sure no one found out so that nothing worse would happen to me. This is not a situation I would ever want to face.

11 comments

It’s interesting Dubai has been featured on some reality shows lately, including Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. These showcases of the country are designed to make viewers want to go. But too many Americans don’t understand the “what if” aspects of travel to some countries. We’re so used to our laws we assume the rest of the world operates the same way. I hope the woman’s gov’t can step in and get her out.

I agree 100% that it is horrendous and extremely unjust to punish a women for being raped.

However my question is would you or other readers be satisfied if the law in the UAE and other like countries punished both men and women for extra marital sex equally? My guess is a resounding no. There would still be an uproar against so-called “Victorian” or “puritanical” or old fashioned laws. People would say “love is love” or “what two consenting adults do in private has nothing to do with the government.”

Your outrage, though I think very correct in this extreme and sad example, at their laws governing extra marital and homosexual sex is lacking authority. It’s very similar to a UAE or other Muslim blogger saying they will boycott most western countries because they allow and even promote sexual immorality – i.e. Extramarital and homosexual sex. Most westerners who completely brush that off as a joke.

The best way to protect women and promote a healthy family and society is to teach men that God created men and women as equally valuable and worthy of respect and love and to teach men and women to value sex as a beautiful expression of love for each other that should be expressed in the commitment of marriage only.

I know many people will laugh and write this off. But I challenge these people to come up with a more compelling answer. I can personally attest that many western and non-western men and women find the answer I gave as much more compelling, healthy, and beneficial than the current American message of, “sex is private and anyone can do anything they want as long as it is consensual, including lying to and cheating on their partner or spouse, random sex, hook ups, etc.”

If you want to be treated as a civilized country, acting like a pack of savages is unlikely to win you a lot of props. Injustices like this show what a country is truly about, rather than the image the country tries to project.

In the early 80s I traveled alone to an Islamic country I thought would be safe for a lone woman. I was wrong, was accosted many times, dragged into places I didn’t want to be. Fortunately, I was able to talk my way out of situations before these became worse, but it was close. I had to glom onto a Western male to not be accosted. Getting out of the country was also a challenge. It’s unfortunate to say, but, I now avoid Islamic countries. They don’t get it, and I don’t want to put my safety and well-being in jeopardy. Because of that experience, to me it’s important that this mindset does not spread to other places and result in other destinations becoming woman-unfriendly.